A white man who claims to have been on “neighborhood watch” shot and killed 20-year-old Kouren-Rodney Bernard Thomas in North Carolina on Monday, August 8.
Thomas was attempting to attend a party with friends when he was shot by 39-year-old Chad Copley, who told 911 he was trying protect his family from “hoodlums.”
Cops received 911 calls from Copley’s house before and after the shooting.
“We’ve got a bunch of hoodlums out here racing. I am locked and loaded. I’m going outside to secure my neighborhood,” Copley said, according to a recording of the first emergency call.
In the second call, Copley tells the operator he fired his weapon, but said he wasn’t sure if he had shot anyone. “Well, I don’t know if they were shot or not, Ma’am,” he said. “I fired my warning shot like I’m supposed to by law. They do have firearms, and I’m trying to protect myself and my family. Ma’am, I don’t know who they are. There’s frigging black males outside my frigging house with firearms. Please send PD.”
When officers arrived, they found Thomas dying of a gunshot wound. He was pronounced dead at a hospital a short time after.
“It was silent. No fighting and no arguing and no one waving guns,” said David Walker, a friend who came to the party with Thomas.
“I heard the shot, and I’m watching him run and saw him drop,” Walker told The New York Daily News. “It doesn’t make any sense. Who shoots a warning shot at a person?”
Cops said Copley fired the shot from inside his garage and that no weapons were found outside.
Thomas’ mother, Simone Butler-Thomas, launched a GoFundMe page to raise money for funeral expenses.
“I hope at the end of all of this he didn’t die in vain. If my baby’s passing can change laws to stop innocent people being killed, then let it be so,” she said. I can’t bring him back. I would love to change places with him. I’m heartbroken. I feel like somebody just ripped my heart out.”
Thomas had been working at McDonald’s and was excited to move his girlfriend into East Carolina University this fall.
Copley is charged with first-degree murder and is being held without bail. He could face the death penalty if convicted.
